Does Sexual Orientation Matter When It Comes to Health?

People who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual are more likely to smoke and drink than those who identify as straight, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics on Tuesday. But they are more likely to exercise, too.

(Read the complete demographic overview of America’s smokers.)
The 2013 survey was the first time the annual National Health Interview Survey included questions to measure sexual orientation. The survey collected information from 34,557 people over 18 in the U.S. It showed about 96.6% of adults in the United States identified themselves as straight, 1.6% identified as gay or lesbian and 0.7% identified as bisexual. A little over 1% didn’t respond to the sexual orientation question.

Looking at health-related behavior, there were some significant differences based on sexual orientation. Overall, gays/lesbians and bisexual people were much more likely to smoke cigarettes than a straight person. When broken down by gender, there wasn’t much significant difference with men, but gay/lesbian women (25.7%) and bisexual women (28.5) were much more likely than their straight counterparts (15%) to smoke.

Gay men (63.5%) were more likely to meet federal guidelines for aerobic physical activity than straight (53.7%) and bisexual (53.3%) men. Bisexual women (55.5%) were more likely than straight (47.9%) or gay/lesbian (45.1%) women to meet federal exercise guidelines.

Bisexual people are less likely to be in excellent health, more likely to have had psychological distress in the past 30 days and more likely to be obese, according to the data. While gay men (66.2%) are more likely to be in excellent or very good health than straight (61.6%) or bisexual (63.6%) men, gay/lesbian women (53.4%) were less likely to be in excellent health compared to their straight (59.8%) or bisexual (55.5%) counterparts.

The statistics also pointed to a significant difference between bisexual women and gay/lesbian and straight women when it comes to mental health. Almost 11% of bisexual women surveyed said they had experience serious psychological distress in the past 30 days, while only 5.3% of gay/lesbian women and 4.2% straight women had a similar experience. Bisexual women (40.9%) are also more likely to be obese than their gay/lesbian (36.7%) and straight (28.3%) counterparts.

People who are gay or lesbian are also more likely to have private insurance coverage than people who are straight. According to the survey, straight people are more likely to have a public plan, which includes Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, government-sponsored plans and military plans.

About The Numbers

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